


As If Seen in a Curved Mirror

by Infinite_Monkeys



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Accidental Drug Use, Gen, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Thor (2011)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 14:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17245760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infinite_Monkeys/pseuds/Infinite_Monkeys
Summary: A prank gone wrong has dangerous consequences for a certain trickster. Thor's trying to help his brother, but Loki's proving...surprisingly difficult.





	As If Seen in a Curved Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! Just something short to sustain me while I work on all the longer projects, so I can feel like a productive human being that finishes things!
> 
> This is a non-commercial work and rights to the characters belong to Marvel. 
> 
> See end notes for substance-use related content warnings.

Thor wished, not for the first time that night, that he had his brother's skill with illusion so he could slip away and find a tavern somewhere.  
  
While feasts were usually something he enjoyed, state dinners in honor of diplomatic visitors tended to be _boring_ , and those involving elves doubly so. Tonight was no different. King Norr of Alfheim had come with his ministers to negotiate a trade agreement, and had brought along his entire brood to experience a foreign realm. Thor had been stuck entertaining Norr's heir for the past few days, and he found the crown prince of Alfheim tiresome and uptight.  
  
He sat to Thor's right now, engaged in a discussion of tariffs with one of the Allfather's ministers across the table. Even his voice bored Thor, dry and methodical as the shuffling of paperwork. He leaned over to his other side and poked Loki, who glared at him. He grinned. Still here, and with Thor keeping an eye on him he couldn't sneak off either. Better they be bored together than drowning alone in table manners and discussions of taxes.  
  
The quiet conversations around them faded out as a small commotion broke out at one of the lower tables. Thor craned his head to see, but all he could make out was a knot of people standing from their seats, shouting in overlapping voices at something happening in the center of the disturbance.  
  
Thor found himself hoping for something interesting, perhaps even a brawl he could join. The table around him had lapsed from silence into whispered questions, and several of the elven nobility scowled their disapproval.  
  
From out of the commotion came Sif, dragging a reluctant elven youth by the arm, a grim look on her face. The boy was nearly Loki's age, a man but barely, still growing into his long arms and legs. One of Norr's sons, somewhere in the middle of Alfheim's many princes, though something tugged at his sense of familiarity until he found the memory.  
  
Earlier that week, the boy had fallen victim to one of Loki's crueler pranks. They had been out in the gardens when Loki had tagged him with a spell that attracted bees, causing him to be dogged by an ever-growing swarm for the better part of an hour. In the end, he had run screaming and thrown himself into one of the fountains in front of the high-ranking nobility of both realms, including, he'd heard afterward, a girl the boy rather fancied.  
  
“What is this?” Odin glared down disapproval at the warrior maiden, no doubt for manhandling a member of the visiting nobility. Sif released his arm with a little shove that made him pitch forward. He caught himself on the edge of the table where the kings and queens were seated, clattering the dishes and causing cups of wine to slosh over.  
  
“Tell them what you told me,” she ordered, and when he glanced at her over his shoulder his eyes were wide with fear.  
  
“It was only a joke!” He looked between the Allfather and his own father, whose stern attention had now shifted to him. He shrunk under their inquisitive glares. “Prince Loki made me look like a fool,” he mumbled. “It was only a bit of payback.”  
  
Loki stiffened beside Thor, and he frowned. The next voice was that of King Norr, demanding. “What did you do?”  
  
“I slipped some powdered Ghost Flower into his drink,” he admitted reluctantly, and the room immediately reacted. Several people jumped up, others started to whisper. “It was only a prank! It would look like he'd gotten too deep in his cups, and he'd make a drunken ass of himself. It's not that big of a—”  
  
Thor met Loki's eyes and mouthed “Ghost flower?” His brother had gone pale, eyes wide and terrified, and the people sitting next to them kept darting nervous glances.  
  
The boy cut off when Norr roared and lunged across the table, grabbing handfuls of his shirt in his fist. “You stupid boy!” He backhanded the youth with an echoing slap and he fell over, more from shock than the force of the blow.  
  
“It isn't that bad!” he cried desperately, but this only seemed to make Norr angrier.  
  
“Isn't that bad? To the Aesir, that plant is deadly!” Thor felt the blood draining out of his own face in a lightheaded rush. _Poison_. He hazarded a glance at Loki, who swayed like he might fall over. Probably a result of the poison, he thought desperately, and reached over to steady him.  
  
Their mother appeared behind them, looking surprisingly calm despite her obvious worry as she tugged on his brother's arm and whispered in his ear. Loki stood, and they made their way out together.  
  
“We are guests in this place,” Norr was shouting, “and you go and murder the son of the king. If he dies the Allfather has every right to call for your blood. I won't protect you if he does.”  
  
Odin, beside him, lay a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Our healers are very skilled,” he said calmly, “and my wife has already taken my son to see them. I have every faith that he will recover.”  
  
Norr didn't look at him, only shook his head. “You have more faith than I,” he said. “I've seen the poison act. It is slow and ugly, and every cure I've seen is unreliable at best.”  
  
Thor felt as though the table were rotating slowly beneath him. His brother's place sat abandoned beside him, a half-eaten slice of roast cooling on the plate, and his cup, _the poisoned one_ , within reach.  
  
On impulse Thor picked it up and looked inside. The drink looked ordinary, nothing obviously amiss, but it was nearly gone, and the thought made his stomach twist.  
  
“Thor.” A hand fell on his shoulder. “Are you all right?”  
  
He looked up into Sif's concerned eyes and didn't bother trying to force a smile. “I don't think so,” he said honestly. “Thank you. If we hadn't realized...”  
  
She did smile, tight and grim. “He was bragging about it to one of the other tables. I hope I wasn't too late.”  
  
Thor stood abruptly, nearly upending the table before he extricated himself. The poisoned drink fell over, what was left of it running over the wood and dripping to the floor like spilled blood, and the hot rush of anger that sang through his veins surprised him. For a brief moment he wanted to beat the elf-prince bloody, to exact revenge for the sick worry spinning in his gut, but when he caught sight of the boy he was huddled in a corner crying miserably, one side of his face already starting to swell from where his father had struck him. The sight brought an unexpected swell of pity rising in his chest.  
  
The boy had attempted to play a practical joke, perhaps more vicious than most, but he had only truly wanted to embarrass Thor's brother. While he was still angry, he could very easily imagine Loki in the boy's place, having done the same thing, facing the same consequences. The thought of his brother facing possible execution for a prank gone wrong filled him with a deep, visceral sort of horror that he refused to dwell on, but he sincerely hoped that when Loki recovered the boy would be forgiven.  
  
Because Loki would recover. Odin had sounded so calm, so certain, and Thor couldn't bring himself to doubt that fact.  
  
“I am going to the healing rooms to see how my brother fares,” he told Sif, and she squeezed his arm in reassurance as she nodded.  
  
The halls were shockingly quiet after the commotion, and the few people he saw passed in silence, refusing to meet his eyes. It drove a hard lump up into his throat, and he swallowed it down, repeating to himself that Loki was strong, the palace healers were skilled, and everything would work out fine.  
  
He entered the healing chambers to find them hushed. The door to one of the private rooms in the back was shut, so presumably that was where Loki was, but both his mother and Eir stood a little ways back, speaking in muted tones. They quieted as he approached, and when his mother met his eyes hers were bright with worry, but she wasn't crying.  
  
“How is he?” Thor asked, and his mother gave a reassuring smile.  
  
“The healers are treating him now and expect him to recover fully.” He felt some of his unease dissolve with the reassurance, leaving his chest lighter.  
  
“I cannot believe he was poisoned here, in our own hall,” Thor said. “By the son of one of our allies, even.” The thought left his head spinning, and he couldn't help but feel another spike of rising anger.  
  
“Ghost Flower is consumed recreationally and for spiritual purposes by both elves and giants,” Eir said clinically. “It is only the Aesir, the Vanir and mortals who find it deadly. It is likely the Norrson did not realize that our species differed so.”  
  
“Still,” he said, “that does not change that—”  
  
His thought was cut off when the door to Loki's room flew open and one of the younger healers, likely an apprentice, lunged for them with wide, panicked eyes and shouted “He's gone!”  
  
Thor's heart immediately twisted as though it were a wet rag someone had tried to wring out, and cold horror settled in the pit of his stomach. _No_ , this was _wrong_ , Loki was supposed to be _fine_ , not...this. Not gone. Cold adrenaline surged through his system, setting his heart to racing and forcing him to gasp for breath.  
  
Within seconds his panic sent him hurtling into Loki's room, even though he was afraid of what he might find, but there was...nothing. Nothing but confused and alarmed healers and a messy, unmade cot. His mother and Eir came in only steps behind him, the apprentice at their heels.  
  
“He went out the window,” the girl was saying, her voice high and near-hysterical. She pointed to the open window in the far wall and he rushed over, staring down at the paving stones below. Far below.  
  
They were empty, and he wasn't sure whether to be afraid or relieved.  
  
“Thor.” He snapped back to himself to find his mother calling his name. He shook himself and then forced himself to meet her eyes. “Thor,” she said again, “we need to find your brother.”  
  
“Why?” He heard himself ask, voice heavy with disbelief. “Why did he leave? Why would he jump out the _window_?”  
  
His mother grabbed him by the arms, grounding him. “Listen to me, Thor. This poison doesn't just affect the body, it tampers with the mind. You need to find your brother, keep him calm, and bring him back here, understand?”  
  
Thor nodded, trying and not quite succeeding at forcing his thoughts to come together. “Shouldn't we send out the Einherjar? A full search party?”  
  
She bit her lip. “If he left, your brother is not in his right mind. We don't want to alarm him. He can be very difficult to find if he so chooses, and it is absolutely imperative that we keep him calm. Here.”  
  
He forced himself to look up. His mother held a crystal on a chain, and when she muttered a spell it started to glow, a dark green ember deep within the stone. “Take this. The light will grow more intense the closer you are to your brother.” She pressed it into his hand, closing his fingers around it. "I trust you. Find him, and bring him back."  
  
He gripped it tight, squeezing until the edges bit into his palm, and swore he'd never again wish for something to disrupt his boredom.

* * *

  
  
He took the shortest route down to stables, striding at a pace just the other side of a run, only to have Sif fall into step with him before he reached the end of the corridor. “What is it? Where are you going? Is Loki okay?”  
  
He almost growled, but he bit it back at the genuine concern in the last question.  
  
“He's gone,” he said, and the color drained out of Sif's face. “The poison left him confused and he ran off. I have to go and find him.”

"Alone?" she asked. 

"My mother believes that he may be alarmed by strangers in his current state," he said. "If he decides to hide we will not find him in time."

“Let us join you,” she said, hurrying to regain the ground she had lost in her initial shock. “Together we can cover more ground, and Loki knows us.”  
  
He nodded; her argument made sense. “I would be sorely glad of your help,” he admitted.  
  
She nodded back and disappeared, but she and the warriors three met him down at the stables as he saddled his horse. They set off together, moving in grim silence, the importance of their mission weighing Thor down like a pillar of stone sitting on his chest.  
  
When they reached the outer courtyard he pulled out the crystal his mother had given him. It glowed dully, a tiny spark deep within like an ember in a dying fire. He circled the chain around his hand and let the tracker dangle in front of him as he took the reins.  
  
It quickly became apparent that tracking Loki was not going to be as easy as he anticipated. The crystal gave him no sense of direction, only of whether he grew closer or further from his brother, so he often had to travel for a ways in a wrong direction before finding the right way. Every time, he cursed the delay with increasing frustration.  
  
They reached the edge of the main city eventually, each passing moment keying Thor's anxiety higher. His companions stopped beside him at the edge of the forest, staring at the treeline. The crystal blazed bright at the end of its chain, intense enough that he knew Loki must be close.  
  
“We should split up,” Hogun said, and Thor turned to look at him.  
  
Sif nodded. “I agree. The tracker took us this far, but at this point I think we'll find him faster by fanning out.”  
  
“Okay.” Thor took a deep breath, and Sif directed them, spacing them out at the edge of the trees. A few steps in, sound fell off, muted, and within a moment he had lost sight of the others entirely.  
  
Thor had acquired some basic tracking skills while on the hunt, and he used them now, scanning the undergrowth and the soft forest dirt for any sign it had been disturbed. Inexplicably snapped twigs, the edge of a boot print, anything that could serve as a clue. At first, there was nothing beside the usual marks left by forest game, but a few minutes later he found a fresh disturbance that looked recent, and then another.  
  
The tracks were wrong, softer somehow than he would expect, and it took until he found the edge of a clean print to recognize that the imprint was from bare feet instead of boots.  
  
He followed the trail, eyes fixed to the ground, until he caught sight of a dark uneven shape lying in the distance. Even at this distance he recognized his brother, sprawled bonelessly on the soft carpet of the moss. His eyes stared at the leafy canopy above, unblinking. The sight sent fear crawling through his belly. He didn't remember dismounting, but his legs felt numb beneath him as he staggered forward.  
  
He moved closer, almost collapsing in relief when Loki turned his head to blink up at him. “Thank the Norns,” he said aloud. “I feared we wouldn't find you in time.”  
  
“I can smell sounds,” Loki told him brightly. “Your voice is like the smoke from an ash fire.”  
  
“Yes, good,” he said, keeping his voice calm even as the surging panic started flooding back in. Now that he had a clear view, Loki's face looked just slightly wrong, his eyes staring at nothing, pupils blown so wide Thor could barely see his irises, reduced as they were to thin slivers of green. “Let's get you back to the healers now.”  
  
Loki shook his head emphatically, like a small child refusing to eat his vegetables. “No. I was just there, but the healers are all secretly made of bugs. It's under their skin, I can tell.”  
  
“What? No, that's—” He cut himself off. Clearly the effects of the poison had progressed far enough to steal his brother's senses, and it was doubtful that arguing would help. “Fine, fine, but we should at least go back home. Mother is worried about you.”  
  
To his enormous relief, Loki nodded, and after one or two tries and with Thor steadying him, managed to stand up.  
  
“Here, my horse is over here,” Thor said, taking his brother by the arm and leading him over to where the mare had started nibbling at clumps of soft ferns. Loki swayed slightly as they walked but held his own weight, not obviously weakened by the poison adding his mind.  
  
When they reached the horse Thor laced his hands together and held them out, creating a step to help his brother mount. Loki glanced at it and walked past, coming around to the front of the horse and peering intently up its left nostril.  
  
“What are you doing?” Thor grabbed the back of Loki's collar, pulling him back. He didn't glare, only stared back at Thor with his too-bright eyes.  
  
“It's peculiar,” he said. “They go on forever. How do they do that?”  
  
“I don't know.” When Loki tried to move forward for another look the horse shied back, and he frowned. “We don't have time for this, brother. We have to get you to the healers.”  
  
The instant he said it he recognized the mistake; the healers were supposed to be bug-people in this warped reality, and Loki would throw a fit and refuse to go with him again.  
  
Except he didn't, only hummed and nodded along, and even though that was a relief it added to his unease. How was Thor supposed to figure this out if the rules kept changing?  
  
“I am going to help you onto the horse now,” he said, moving slowly as though trying not to spook a wild animal.  
  
This time, when he led Loki around to the side of the animal and made to boost him into the saddle, he stepped into the proffered hands and allowed himself to be helped up, only to fall across the horse, his middle across the saddle, and start sliding down the other side. Thor grabbed wildly and managed to catch hold of his ankle fast enough to keep him from falling on his face. With a heave he managed to tug him mostly back on the horse, and he made an unhappy noise as he slid back into place.  
  
The horse, apparently having decided she'd had enough of this nonsense, leapt forward a few steps, far enough to send Loki tumbling to the ground despite Thor's attempt to catch him.  
  
“Ow,” he said, rubbing his nose and scowling.  
  
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” Thor reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, and Loki knocked it off. He took a deep breath. “We'll try again.”  
  
He jogged off a few paces to catch the horse, which tossed her head in irritation but walked obediently beside him back to where he'd left his brother. Loki had wandered a ways away and was sitting at the edge of a small stream, letting the water run over his socks and soaking them.  
  
“Let's try this again,” Thor said, trying to force some cheer past the exhaustion weighing him down. Loki flopped backwards onto the bank and stared at him, but didn't say anything or make any move to stand. He swore he could feel his heart sinking further.  “Come on, get up.”  
  
Loki kept staring at nothing, and Thor bit back the urge to shake him.  
  
Instead, he hooked his arm and pulled him to his feet, then grabbed the back of his shirt and bodily lifted him onto the horse. Loki froze for a second before he remembered to struggle, but it was long enough that when he slipped out of Thor's grasp it was over the saddle, and he ended up sitting more or less upright.  
  
Thor let out a deep breath, stepping up into the stirrup and preparing to mount behind him, but then scrambled to catch him when he leaned over the neck of the horse and kept leaning. Thor caught him across the chest in both arms with his face mere inches from the ground. He blinked at it slowly, as though surprised to find it so close so suddenly. One hand reached out and patted the moss gently as Thor lowered him down.  
  
He adjusted his grip to try lifting him again, but Loki rolled away from him and into the horse's legs, almost getting himself stomped. “No,” he said, staring up at Thor with an almost hostile expression.  
  
“Come _on_ ,” he said, patience wearing thin. “I have to—”  
  
He slapped Thor's hand away when he reached for him again, rolling to his feet with a surprising amount of steadiness. “I don't want to go on the horse.”  
  
Thor wanted to cry in his frustration. He doubted even Loki with his silver tongue could have reasoned with this manic irrational version of himself, so what chance had he? Every moment they wasted brought them closer to some invisible cutoff where Loki could not be saved, and Thor refused to let his brother die of a treatable ailment just because he couldn't find the right words.  
  
“Okay,” he said to himself, and heaved a deep breath. “Okay.” He gathered himself and stalked over to where his brother stood, taking him by the arm more forcefully than before.  
  
Loki immediately whipped around to face him, wrenching away.  
  
“No, stop, stop touching me.” He brought his arms up and shoved hard enough that Thor stumbled back. “I can't tell where you stop. It's like you're swallowing me. It's always like you're swallowing me.”  
  
“Loki!” he pleaded, taking another step forward then stopping when his brother started to shy back. “I'm not doing anything except trying to get you to help. Please let me help.”  
  
“Nooooooooo,” he whined. “You're just trying to blot me out, like, like I'm a shadow and you're _too bright_. It hurts.”  
  
“I'm trying to save your _life_ ,” Thor shouted, and the panic in his gut sounded like anger in his voice. “ _Why_  are you so bound and determined to make that difficult? I'm not trying to do anything but help you. I don't know how to help you.”  
  
Loki's response was deadpan. “You never do.”  
  
Thor growled.  
  
Loki threw back his head and _screamed_.  
  
The sound terrified Thor, animalistic and raw. Almost worse, he didn't look angry after, just stared ahead with an expression like quiet contemplation on his face.  
  
“ _Why_?” Thor asked him. “Why would you do that?”  
  
“I wanted to see what despair smelled like,” he answered calmly.  
  
“Come on,” he said as the last shred of his patience left him. He grabbed Loki in earnest, pinning his arms to lift him and carry him over to the horse whether he liked it or not.  
  
Loki _lost his mind_.  
  
He thrashed and spun and struggled until it was like trying to keep hold of a tornado. The tornado might have been easier, Thor decided, because tornadoes didn't have nails to rake across his face, digging long gashes into his cheek, or teeth to dig into his forearm. At least he didn't try to use magic, though whether it was because he couldn't or he was too far gone to think of trying, Thor couldn't tell. They made it almost back to the horse before Loki somehow managed to twist at an angle where he could kick out. His heel connected solidly with Thor's jaw, rattling his teeth together, and Thor dropped him on his head.  
  
Bright lights danced in front of his vision, but he lunged forward with a speed born of desperation. Somehow, Loki was still quicker, scrambling back to his feet and backing away haphazardly, breathing loud and ragged and uneven as he twisted in place.  
  
_Keep him calm_ , he remembered their mother saying seriously, and he imagined the agitation working the poison deeper into his blood and backed away.  
  
The second Thor moved back he seemed to calm, and he sat down on a rock so abruptly that Thor winced, as though his legs had simply given out beneath him.  
  
The bushes behind him rustled and he spun, afraid for a second that they had been found by a wild beast and suddenly aware that, in his haste, he had forgotten to bring a weapon. He relaxed a second later as Sif and Hogun emerged, both visibly out of breath.  
  
“We heard a scream,” she said, her eyes darting past him. Her shoulders relaxed minutely when she saw Loki behind him, sitting peacefully and obviously not dead. “Is everything all right?”  
  
“He won't come with me,” Thor said, barely keeping his voice together. “He keeps struggling and trying to get away from me, and the more I try to hold on the worse it gets. The poison has done something to him and he's entirely out of his mind.”  
  
As though to demonstrate, Loki, from his place sitting on the rock, reached down and removed one of his socks, sniffed it, then proceeded to pull it over his hand like a glove or a puppet and study it.  
  
“I don't know what to _do_.”  
  
Sif nodded, her expression grim and understanding before it softened abruptly and she strode past him to bend down, hands on her knees beside his brother. “Hey, Loki,” she said softly. “How do you feel?”  
  
“I'm thirsty,” Loki announced, still sitting on the ground and staring with rapt attention at the sock he'd removed.  
  
Without blinking she pulled a canteen out of her pack, pulled off the lid, and then hesitated before reaching back into her pack and rummaging around. After another moment she pulled out a small vial of white powder, tipped it into the water, and held it out.

Loki stared at it unhelpfully.

She knelt down and pressed it into his hands and he took it, drinking half of it before dropping it and letting the rest of the water spill out into a tiny puddle of mud. Hogun retrieved it, tucking it away silently.  
  
Loki, for his part, went back to staring at the sock as though he'd forgotten they all existed, but within the moment he started swaying, eyelids drooping slowly closed. After another minute he lowered himself down, curled in on his stomach, closed his eyes, and went still.  
  
“Well that was fast.” Sif bent down and pressed her fingers to his throat, nodding to herself.  
  
“You drugged him?” Thor said, horrified. “I thought you might have found something that would help! How do you know that won't make him worse?”  
  
“I don't,” Sif said, picking up Loki's now-limp form and slinging him over the front of Thor's saddle like newly-hunted game. “But I do know that waiting _would_  make him worse, and I'd rather get him back to the healers as quickly as possible than wait for him to slowly fall apart out here in the middle of nowhere. Get on the horse.”  
  
Any other time Thor would have given her grief for ordering the crown prince of Asgard around, but now he nodded. Even if she was wrong, it was done, and they didn't have the time to waste.  
  
He climbed up into the saddle behind Loki, who didn't move, and arranged his brother so that he sat, slumped back, in front of Thor with his head resting against Thor's shoulder. He looped one arm around his brother's chest and pulled him close, then took the reins in the other.  
  
The ride back to the palace started slow, with the horses picking their way through the trees and no open spaces large enough to move past a trot. Loki's breathing stayed deep and reassuringly even, but he also stayed unconscious and unmoving.  
  
As the trees thinned out and they broke though into open ground, he spurred his horse on faster until they were flying through the streets at a wild, reckless gallop. When they reached the palace he dismounted before the horse came fully to a stop, hitting the ground running with his still-unconscious brother in his arms.  
  
The people they passed either dove out of his way or stopped to gape, staring after him on his mad sprint back to the healers. The door nearly splintered as he burst through it, shouting for Eir through his gasping attempts to catch his breath.  
  
“Come quick,” he shouted, “we had to drug him to bring him back, and I don't know how far the poison has progressed.”  
  
At their direction he laid his brother down on one of the cots, taking care to move him gently and support his head. Despite everything he still took deep, regular breaths, and when he let his hand linger at Loki's throat the pulse beat strong and steady.  
  
“Did we make it in time?” he asked, and his voice came out small and timid. “Is he going to be okay?”  
  
“He should be.”  
  
A hand on his shoulder made him jump, but it was only his mother, standing beside him and watching the healers work. Not that they seemed to be doing much; this was not the frantic, breathless rush that greeted a severe injury, and he found himself hoping that the healers' relaxed pace could be taken as a good sign.  
  
“You did well,” she said into his ear. “Thank you.”  
  
“He will recover, won't he?” Thor asked. “His mind as well as his body?”  
  
“Of course.” She tore her gaze away from her youngest to smile at him. “All will be well. Do not worry.”  
  
She spoke with absolute confidence, and he hoped with every fiber of his being she was right.

* * *

  
  
By the time Loki came awake, Thor had amassed a truly enormous number of well-wishes he was intended to pass on and grown utterly sick of the sight of the healing halls.  
  
Sometime during the first hour a messenger had come for his mother saying his father required her and she had left, lips thin with displeasure, but not before telling him to stay and be there for Loki when he woke. She needn't have; Sleipnir himself could not have dragged him away. Still, the wait was tedious, so he had busied himself with polishing the nicks out of his armor as he waited.  
  
“You know,” came from the bed in a conversational tone, “some people may find it threatening when you watch them sleep while sharpening an axe.”  
  
He let the weapon clatter to the floor as he surged to his feet. “Brother,” he said, delight filling his voice, “you're awake!”  
  
Loki nodded. “Indeed. How long was I unconscious?”  
  
“No more than a few hours,” Thor answered truthfully, then hesitated. “Do you remember—”  
  
“Everything,” Loki said, and grimaced. “Unfortunately. At least until I fell asleep after Sif gave me the drugged water. At least, I'm assuming that's what happened.”  
  
“Aye.” Thor nodded. “We needed to bring you home. The healers said the poison should be out if your system by the time you woke. How do you feel now?”  
  
“Tired,” he said, “and a little dizzy. That's likely from the sedatives though.” He sat up and tried to reach for a pitcher on the bedside table. Thor poured him a glass and held it out, and he drained it.  
  
Something still itched at him, at the back of his brain, so Thor gathered himself and then spoke again. “Those things you said,” Thor said, “feeling like I drown you out. Did you mean them?”  
  
He smiled, a shaky smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. “I also said that the healers were secretly bugs in stolen suits of skin. I wouldn't give too much credit to anything I said while poisoned.”  
  
Thor laughed and clapped him on the back. “Fair enough.”  
  
Just then the healer came in to take his vitals and examine him, and Thor made to slip out, satisfied now that his brother was in his right mind and would be well. He had nearly made it to the door when Loki's “wait” stopped him.  
  
“The Norrson,” he said, “the one who poisoned me. What of him?”  
  
“I find it likely that since you are well, he will be pardoned,” Thor answered. “That is my hope, at least.”  
  
“Really?” Loki's frown had something sharp behind it that made him uneasy. “You don't find poisoning me a serious offense?”  
  
“He didn't mean to,” Thor said reflexively. “And you're fine now. Anyway, he was just trying to get back at you for the bees. You must admit, that was unkind.”  
  
“I could have died,” he said quietly, not meeting Thor's eyes.  
  
“And I'm very glad you didn't.” He reached out to rest a hand on Loki's shoulder. When his brother looked up his expression was untroubled, and a smile slowly spread across his face. Thor relaxed.  
  
“That's right,” Loki said. “No harm no foul, and I most likely deserved it anyway, didn't I?”  
  
“I wouldn't say that.” Thor returned the smile. “But it all sort of...evened out, in the end.”  
  
“Right,” Loki said, “evened out.”  
  
“So you won't push to have him punished for it?”  
  
“No.” Loki shook his head, and there was a flash of something sharp in his expression before it smoothed, so quick that Thor was almost sure he imagined it. “I suppose not.”  
  
He relaxed, letting out a deep breath. “That is good.”  
  
He clapped a hand on Loki's shoulder. “Rest up, brother,” he said, “and I've no doubt you'll be back to your usual mischief before long.”  
  
Loki looked not at him, but through him, as though his thoughts were far away. “Yes,” he said, “no doubt.”

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: accidental/noncon substance use involving fantasy drugs with effects similar to 5HT-2 agonists (LSD, psilocybin, etc).


End file.
